While it is not unwise to initiate worthwhile undertakings at astrologically auspicious times, anything you do with deep faith in God will blossom under better influences than you could hope to find by consulting the heavens for favorable aspects.

I had learned a valuable lesson. I realized that my worry habit reflected the mistaken notion that by thinking and fretting about the “critically important details” I had to juggle in my job, I would somehow make the situation better.

Ages ago, Saint Bhrigu of India had a desire to find the most humble form God had ever taken. He wandered all over the Himalayan Mountains and other holy places in search of an incarnation of God he could accept as a guru.

During the early years of Christianity, the importance of inner communion and a personal relationship with God were particularly emphasized by the Gnostics, a school of early Christians who were eventually suppressed.

Outward change has been a constant in my life since I was a child. My family moved seven times before I was ten years old, and four more times when I was in high school.

There is no shortcut to forgiveness. Perfect self-honesty, however, will lead us eventually to the point when we can purge from our hearts the need to make someone else responsible for our suffering.

The mother rejoiced after she heard how her eight sons had been saved from drowning, but with sobs cried out, “Your Excellency, my ninth son, my heart is bursting with grief for you have killed your brother.”

Ahimsa is seen by most people as the last hope of the underdog. Yet ahimsa, rightly understood, is the “ultimate weapon” of a strong man; it turns one’s enemy into a friend, thereby banishing the possibility of further conflict.

Truth seekers must understand that finding God is not like the supreme effort required, say, to climb Mount Everest. Finding God is the simplest, most obvious, and most supremely natural thing to do in the world!

Spiritual progress is achieved above all by desiring it intensely. Know that you are growing spiritually when your entire consciousness, no matter what your faults, is turned to God.

The natural food for the mind is joy, and we’re always hungry until we find the ability to feast on that joy.

When you feel worried or anxious, call on HOLY AUM. Pray believing in its sovereignty over matter. Remember always Yogananda’s promise: “When you are in the consciousness of AUM, nothing can touch you.”

When we are truthful, we have support from reality itself—from the universe. And with that support, everything will always come out for the best. But without it, things cannot but fall apart, sooner or later.

Our true nature is healthy. It can’t be otherwise because we are children of God. Illness and other health troubles come from not being in touch with our deepest reality.

Since I felt no love in my heart, I prayed to my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, and asked him to love people through me. I hoped thereby to learn how to love.

Suddenly finding myself in the turbulent deeper waters, the memory of my near-drowning experience surfaced. I panicked and swam back to the beach.

The saint said, “Now that you have found your god, go back home. But if you find a more powerful god than this one, worship him. Always worship the more powerful god.”

There are some people who never do anything, and they’re always relaxed. Such lives may be pleasant, but they don’t advance you spiritually. You do not attain peace merely by escaping responsibility.

A true guru is not a man, merely, but an egoless channel for the Divine. His human body and personality are the most superficial things about him.

To become magnetic to others, you must make yourself attractive from within. Positive behavior, control of speech, and kind words are qualities which clothe the soul in spiritual magnetism.

What everyone needs is to calm his emotions, and thereby to develop intuitive feeling. Without feeling of any kind, the intellect can justify any conclusion, even the most monstrously evil.

When we fail in our aspirations and fall to the ground, we need to be able to muster the courage to get up and try again. There is always a way to go forward.

May we all, as we read these sacred word, hear the Master’s voice speaking to us directly, within our own consciousness.

Seldom has a great master come into the world with such an outwardly commanding and heroic role as Jesus.

Learning to direct the energy of the heart is probably our most important challenge spiritually. If we want to awaken to our true state of unity with the Divine, we must learn to control our feelings and to channel them in a positive direction.

Remember, when your love for God becomes a constant, silent yearning of your heart, all other things will melt away like morning mist before the rising sun.

Instead of holding the thought hopelessly, “I can’t do that!” I’ve told myself, “Even though I don’t see how I can do that, I know God can do anything, even through the poorest instrument!”

Always be wise in your seeking. The emotional excitement of finding new ways must always be balanced against the truth that “loyalty is the first law of God.” Eclecticism indicates a lack of serious purpose.

The ultimate culprit that holds us back spiritually is the non-use of Paramhansa Yogananda’s techniques. The failure to use the spiritual tools given by the Guru puts us out of attunement with him.

For all its persuasiveness, life is as unreal as any movie. There is no substance at all to the manifested universe—except inasmuch as movies are real: as appearances, merely.